Colorado State thrower now thriving, instead of just surviving

May 22, 2013

CSU senior Liz Johnson has become a 'thriver'' in and out of the discus ring after dealing with a knee injury, sexual abuse as a child and dark times for her family. / Courtesy of Colorado State University

There have been a lot of dark times in Liz Johnson’s 23 years, but that has only made the light at the end of her tunnel that much brighter.

As a young child, Johnson said, she was sexually abused by her grandfather.

Her parents separated not long after she started college.

And the knee injury she suffered as a senior at Fossil Ridge High School and subsequent surgery left behind scar tissue that required a second surgery 1½years later.

But the senior on the CSU track and field team said Wednesday those dark times have made her a better person, a stronger person and one she refers to as a “thriver” rather than a “survivor.”

“The success at the end is what’s nice,’’ Johnson said Wednesday. “Building up to it, it makes you stronger.’’

Extensive therapy sessions and openly talking about the sexual abuse that she, and her mother before her, endured as children have helped heal Johnson’s emotional wounds and brought her family closer together, she said.

And a renewed commitment to her sport has put Johnson back on track as a discus thrower. The three-time Colorado Class 4A champion in high school is the No. 16 seed in the NCAA West Regional Championships, a three-day meet that begins Thursday in Austin, Texas. She is hoping to move into the top 12 so she can compete in the national championships June 5-8 in Eugene, Ore.

Johnson, one of a record 19 Colorado State University athletes to qualify for the regional championships, threw a personal-best 178 feet, 5 inches earlier this season at CSU’s Jack Christiansen Invitational and finished fourth in the discus and fifth in the shot put earlier this month at the Mountain West Championships.

From horror to healing

She had to heal emotionally before she could heal physically, said her mother, Michelle Johnson.

Liz first told her parents at age 14 about the abuse she had endured by her grandfather from the ages of 3 to 8. It was a few more years before her mother admitted that she, too, had been abused by her father as a young girl.

Those revelations and feelings of victimization and guilt literally tore the family apart, Liz said. Her father, following the advice of a family therapist, moved out as Liz was starting her sophomore year at CSU, leaving her younger brother at home with their mother, who at times was suicidal.

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Recovering from surgery to repair torn anterior cruciate and medial collateral ligaments in her left knee was the least of Liz’s worries at the time. She was worried about her mother, her brothers, her father. And she was still trying to heal emotionally from the abuse she had suffered.

“The family situation was so hard, I think that just clouded my mind,” Liz said. “School wasn’t going very well, and it was hard to focus when all that was going on.”

Everyone in the family had to deal with their own emotions before they could help each other cope with theirs, Michelle said. Eventually, they all came together again.

“As unfortunate as all this was that we’ve been through, it’s built a much stronger family,” Michelle said. “We have stronger relationships because we’ve gone through so much stuff together. At one point, things were so bleak, it was horrible. But we kept working at it. I think we loved each other so much as a family before that we were able to work through it — therapy and all. You work through it, and nobody gave up’’

Liz and her mother — who now works as a family advocate at the Larimer County Child Advocacy Center to help other families through sexual-abuse issues — have spoken publicly about their own experiences. It’s therapeutic for them, they said, and hopefully it helps others come clean about sexual abuse they might have suffered at the hands of a family member.

“You’ve heard of post-traumatic stress,” said Tom, Liz’s father. “Well, there’s something new out there called ‘post-traumatic growth,’ and I think that’s what we’ve experienced. Out of all this, we’re all better and stronger people because of what we went through. It’s made us better.”

Back on track

The emotional healing allowed Liz to continue an athletic career that once carried so much promise.

Liz first injured her left knee during a meet in her senior year of high school but put off surgery until the season was over. Throwing with a heavy brace on the injured knee, and with a modified spin that robbed her of much of her power, Liz still managed to win her third consecutive state title in the discus to go along with the shot put title she won as a junior.

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But her knee hasn’t been quite right ever since.

A second surgery during her sophomore year at CSU to clean out scar tissue restored the mobility she had been lacking. But the real improvement came last summer, when she rededicated herself to her sport after finally working through her emotional and family issues.

She was a regular in the weight room working with new strength and conditioning coach Adam Kuehl, CSU coach Brian Bedard said. She strengthened the knee while also learning there were limits to how hard she could push her rehabilitation before it had a negative effect.

She started throwing less often in practice and started throwing a lot farther, Bedard said. Not every time and certainly not with the kind of consistency he’d like to see. But every once in a while, Liz would put it all together with the kind of “bomb,’’ Bedard said, that would leave even her teammates, including three other NCAA regional qualifiers, in awe.

That’s the kind of throw she’ll need to move on to the national championships, Bedard said. She’ll probably have to throw farther than she ever has before in competition, 180 feet or more, to advance.

“She’s definitely capable of it,” he said, noting that her knee still isn’t fully healed.

But Liz has become comfortable again in her own skin. You can see it in the way she carries herself, Bedard said. As much as she would like to hit that big throw and move on to the national championships in her final season of college competition, she’s already won a much bigger battle.

“It’s been a very long process,” she said. “I think this is the first year where everything’s come together both physically and mentally. It’s all really, really good now.”